A Matter of Black and White

DISCLAIMER: This story is based upon the works of JK Rowling. Anything you recognize is hers. I’m making no money off this. I’m just having some fun adding my own little corner to the amazing world she has created.

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CHAPTER 8—THAT’S THE TRICK

Snape arrived in front of what was fast becoming an all-too-familiar door upstairs in the Leaky Cauldron at 10 a.m. on the dot on Wednesday. With a sharp knock, he announced his perfectly timed arrival. On the other side of the thin inn door, he heard footsteps and shuffling.

“Who is it?” that honey-accented voice called.

Merlin’s bloody carcass. It was 10 a.m. precisely. Who did she think it was?

“It’s me,” he growled.

“Who?”

“Severus Snape,” he snarled. “Professor at Hogwarts, Head of Slytherin House, and bloody well not in the mood to stand around out here.”

“Oh, you might just have said,” she chided carelessly.

It was about time. Snape stepped back for her to open the door.

It didn’t budge.

“I’m waiting,” he said testily.

“What’s your favorite sweet?”

“What?”

“What’s your favorite sweet? I can’t open the door until you tell me.”

Good grief. Was he sure she hadn’t been studying under Dumbledore?

“What is this nonsense?” he demanded.

“Just a little precaution,” she said lightly. “Just tell me your favorite sweet and we can begin.”

“I don’t have one,” he answered through gritted teeth.

The crystal tinkle of laughter. “Of course you do, Severus. What did you spend your pocket money on as a child?”

“Books.”

“And the change? You can’t even buy a used book for a Sickle.”

“Would you just let me in?”

“Not until you tell me what I need to know.”

This was ridiculous. It was now two minutes after ten, and his perfectly prompt arrival was getting utterly bollixed.

“Milk’ems,” he growled at last.

“What?”

“Milk’ems,” he repeated lowly, glancing self-consciously over his shoulder. “The Swiss chocolate cows that squirt sweet cream.”

The door opened to sparkling cerulean eyes. “I’m glad to hear there is something Swiss you like,” she said, allowing him to pass, “though I rather expected you to say Acid Pops.” Another mischievous sparkle and she added, “You rather have the tongue for them.”

He was about to ask what all this tomfoolery was about when he saw the Daily Prophet lying open on her bed to a Ministry insert with safety precautions for the general public. For the love of Merlin, she was taking security lessons from the Daily Prophet and the Ministry!

She caught his gaze. “Sorry, safety first, you know,” she said carelessly. “It’s a thoughtful service they’re providing citizens.” More wryly she added, “Pity they didn’t start doing this two years ago.”

To Snape’s simultaneous relief and bewilderment, she scooped the paper up and tossed it unceremoniously into the fire, then added, “Personally, I favor Sugar Quills myself.”

He scowled at this useless bit of trivia. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

“Actually, there’s something I want to discuss with you first,” she said and settled herself at the rickety little table where they and Dumbledore had taken tea the week before. “Won’t you join me?”

Snape had the sudden suspicion that she was up to something. He just wasn’t sure what. With cautious steps, he situated himself across from her.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I haven’t made any purchases at that joke shop—what is it…Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes? Once those two young redheads found out I was a teacher at Hogwarts, they were suddenly less eager to make a sale.”

Hmm, he’d have to pass by the shop—there was no way he would actually step inside—and see if he could find out what those red-headed menaces were supplying the little hellions following in their footsteps. Now that Umbridge was out of the way, he and the rest of the staff were probably likely targets for childish pranks again.

She began carefully with measured words. “I think it’s time we evaluate my progress, Severus.”

Hmph, what progress?

“I think you’ll agree that there hasn’t been much.”

“That would be an adequate assumption,” he said sardonically.

“I’m not good at letting you into my thoughts, particularly more personal ones.”

“No, you are not.” He still had the bruises to prove it.

“And I don’t know how to focus and contain an entire memory.”

“No, you do not.” Not that this didn’t have some advantages for Snape. It made fishing for information much easier.

“And I haven’t a clue how to take you to a new one.”

“Truer words have never been spoken.”

“I think it’s simply too complicated for me.”

“So it would seem.” Merlin Almighty, she wasn’t giving up, was she?

“I need to do something different.”

“I would agree whole-heartedly.” Something far, far away from him.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

For the love of all things sacred and profane, she was giving up. He was going to be rid of her! Snape wondered if she would resign her post at Hogwarts, too, and hightail it away completely. “If that’s what you think is best,” he said with a measuredness that barely contained his glee. “I will whole-heartedly accept your judgment.”

“I’m glad you agree,” she said with suddenly less reserve.

Shit, what had he just walked into? Surely the baby doll couldn’t have just led a world-wise spy into a trap. “What are you talking about?” he asked coolly.

“I’m talking about these,” she said enthusiastically, pulling a pack of Muggle playing cards from her pocket.

“I hope you don’t expect me to play with those.”

“No, not exactly. What do you know about Muggle magic tricks?”

“That they are not magic,” he said emphatically.

“No, you’re right there,” she admitted. “But I had a run-in—quite literally—yesterday with a Muggle who ‘read minds’ with these things. He got me to thinking that this might be just the way for us to start out our lessons.”

“You are not honestly comparing Legilimency to a cheap Muggle hoax based on a slight of hand?”

“Oh, no slight of hand here,” she insisted. “If I draw a card and you look into my mind, you can see what one I’m holding, right?”

“If I were inclined to waste my magical energy on such a trivial piece of information, yes.”

“But Mentior Occlumency ought to allow me to tell you the wrong card, right?”

“Yes, but unless you are planning on making a living as a high-stakes gambler, I fail to see how this ability would be useful.”

“Severus,” she replied sagely, “you must admit that spies play at the highest stakes of all—they’re gambling with their own lives and with the lives of the people around them.”

Snape nodded curtly. “Which is why I cannot stake my time on you if you insist upon playing games.”

“But it’s not a game; it’s just the beginning,” she persisted. “You said yourself that these lessons haven’t been working for me, that I need to try something different.”

Snape rolled his eyes. Out of his upper periphery he thought he could see the bulging vein that was throbbing more with every word she uttered. “This was not what I was talking about.”

“Why not? Why not try something different? If I can learn to use Mentior Occlumency with these cards, I can graduate to using those same skills on regular memories. What’s the harm in trying?”

“It’s preposterous.”

“Why, Severus,” she said slyly, “I think you’re afraid.”

“Afraid?” He could look the Dark Lord, the most feared wizard in the world in the eye. What could a little white china doll and her flimsy pieces of Muggle paper do to scare him?

“Yes, you’re afraid that my way will work.”

“It won’t work.”

“Then prove it.”

Snape knew when he had been played. He had been working for Dumbledore too long not to recognize the signs. With a stony glare, he grunted, “Fine…but it won’t work.”

“We’ll see,” she sang mischievously.

* * *

The problem was that it didn’t not work either. In their trial run, he found that, unhindered, he could indeed identify any given card she had drawn from the pack with perfect consistency. After a few tries of her employing Occlumency, though, she could let him see her original hand of cards without allowing him to single in on the one she had selected.

Of course, he reminded her that this kind of stonewalling still announced her use of Occlumency. A Legilimens who knew he was being blocked was bound to be suspicious of what was being hidden.

A bit later, she presented in her thoughts a face-down card showing only that strange stone on the back. Try as he might, he could not turn it over in her mind.

“You’re diversion is too vague,” he complained. “I’m not interested in that hunk of rock.”

“A specific card is so much harder,” she moaned. “Besides, maybe you ought to be interested in that ‘hunk of rock.’ It’s one of the most fascinating stones I know of.”

“What?” he asked, peering at the grainy image imprinted on the back of the ace of hearts. “Is it some Muggle version of the Philosopher’s Stone?”

“No, it’s much more intriguing that that,” she said earnestly. “That rock was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.”

“Fascinating,” he said dryly.

“Yes, it is,” she said, completely ignoring his sarcasm. “When the French found it two centuries ago, neither Muggle nor Magical linguists knew how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. There was no place to start. But the Rosetta Stone gave scholars the key. It has a decree from Ptolemy V written in three scripts—Greek, Demotic (that was the Egyptian legal language), and hieroglyphs. Scholars knew how to read the first two, and they helped crack the code to the hieroglyphs. And now the Stone is going to help me crack Mentior Occlumency.”

Snape gave an unrestrained “Hmph!” and set her to drawing a new set of cards. A few tries later, she was still able to keep him from knowing the card she had set aside from her hand. She was also able to feed him the image of a blank card with blurry black or red images to misdirect him. It was still an obvious use of Occlumency, and Miss Frou-Frou White certainly was not up to magically misleading anyone into believing that she had a closet full of sensible black robes at home. Nevertheless, she had made more progress today than she had since he had met her.

Of course, that progress was not due to either those silly cards or the Ro-something Stone. No, even a blind Hippogriff catches a few ferrets. It was high time, he told himself, that she finally did something right.